Cabinet ministers from 6 non-BJP-ruled states move SC; want JEE-NEET postponed

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 28

Cabinet ministers from six non-BJP ruled states on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking review of its decision giving the go-ahead to JEE-NEET examinations.

The six ministers from Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Jharkhand have sought postponement of JEE-NEET exams scheduled for next month.

They have filed the petition in their individual capacity, their counsel Sunil Fernandes said.

The petitioners are --  Balbir Singh Sidhu (Punjab), Moloy Ghatak (West Bengal), Rameshwar Oraon (Jharkhand), Raghu Sharma (Rajasthan), Amarjeet Bhagat (Chhattisgarh) and Uday Ravindra Saman (Maharashtra).

They requested the top court to reconsider its August 17 decision on conducting JEE-NEET examinations.

The Supreme Court had on August 17 rejected a petition seeking to postpone JEE (Main) and NEET-Undergraduate exams scheduled to be held in September, saying a precious year of students “can't be wasted”.

“Life has to go on... Life has to move ahead. A precious year of students cannot be wasted,” a three-judge Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra had said, adding that students' careers “cannot be put under jeopardy for long”.

As per the public notices issued by National Testing Agency (NTA) -- which conducts the tests, JEE (Main) April 2020 is scheduled to be held from September 1 to 6, while NEET-UG 2020 exam is scheduled for September 13.

The order paved the way for conducting these much-awaited examinations next month.

Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta had assured the Bench that due precautions and safeguards would be taken while conducting these examinations.

A group of 11 students from 11 states had moved the top court seeking quashing of the July 3 notices issued by NTA for conducting JEE (Main) April 2020 and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-Undergraduate examinations in September. They wanted the examinations to be rescheduled due to COVID.

Referring to the pandemic, petitioners' advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava had urged the court to direct the authorities to conduct the tests after normalcy was restored.

“Conducting the aforesaid examinations across India at such perilous time is nothing else but putting lives of lakhs of young students (including petitioners herein) at utmost risk and danger of disease and death. The best recourse at this stage can be to wait for some more time, let COVID-19 crisis subside and then only conduct these exams, in order to save lives of the students and their parents,” the plea had said.